Medical practitioners have long used pulse measurements, such as heart rate and blood pressure, to ascertain the health of a patient. This practice obviously stems from the crucial role that a heart and circulatory system plays on the entire physiology of the patient.
Differing from conventional pulse detection and measurement for humans, traditional Chinese medical practitioners have for thousands of years practiced the so-called Chinese Pulse-Taking and Medical Diagnosis (herein CPT/MD). This diagnostic method is performed by pressing the index, middle and third fingers (10,12,14) of one a practitioner's hands 15 in a row onto a Cunkou acupoint 16 of their patient's wrist 18, as illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B. These fingers are used to qualitatively sense and capture the two-dimensional distribution of pulse pressure, or pulse pressure topography, as well as its dynamic characteristics within arterial vessel 34 under skin 30 and tissue 32. The acupoint, Cunkou, refers to the medial area of the prominent head of the radius at the wrist over the radial artery. By individually adjusting the pressure applied by each finger to the acupoint, they can also actively force the downstream or upstream shift of the pulse thus felt along the vessel to sense and capture more comprehensive dynamic characteristics of the arterial pulse. Such a pulse pressure topography and dynamic characteristics are critically informative to the practitioners in identifying the so-called medical pulse conditions and thus, diagnosing the illness and health condition of the patient. In this context, the pulse conditions refer to the physical conditions of pulsation felt by the fingertips, including frequency, rhythm, extent of filling, evenness, motility and amplitude.
For thousands of years, however, the CPT/MD has been conducted only through the fingers of practitioners. Accordingly, this method is highly subjective and considered as a work of art, rather than a science, due to the obvious subjective nature of each practitioner's individual experience and consistency. Moreover, the practitioners can only verbally describe what they feel through their fingertips, even though the assessment is so critical to their medical diagnosis and judgment. Their verbal expressions of what is felt through the fingertips uses commonly agreed upon, but very limited, terminology for the type of pulse and strength of pulse manifested as the pulse condition. This verbal information is highly qualitative and is by no means objective. Consequently, this verbal data regarding a pulse condition cannot be credibly kept as objective medical data for patients.
While conventional pulse detection and measurement devices facilitate more scientific rigor in assessing a pulse, these devices fall short in achieving significant aspects of pulse diagnostics.